


heaven is a word to me;

by cedarmoons



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, CheckMate - Freeform, F/M, ME: THE AUTHOR, Trespasser DLC, Trespasser Reunion, anyway this is 4.6k of angst prepare accordingly, for real tho... i gave myself emotional heartburn, yeah i already wrote one of those but i didnt write one w/ ariala and solas DID I?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 18:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6867880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarmoons/pseuds/cedarmoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has such clumsy hands, even with the most delicate of things. <em>Especially</em> with the most delicate of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heaven is a word to me;

**Author's Note:**

> an anon on tumblr wanted me to write ariala and solas's trespasser reunion. ariala and solas are from [Shatter Me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4326903).

It is the simplest thing, calling upon Mythal’s power. Drawing the whisper of her magic across his skin has become a second nature to him, now. He stills, listening to the crackle of stone as the Viddasala petrifies. In the silence that follows, he feels the Anchor’s raw power, unhinged and lethal, slide across his magic like the wrong side of velvet.

Solas lifts his head, alert, though he does not have the strength to turn. He keeps his gaze on the shimmering eluvian before him, and listens for signs of her presence.

She is here.

Ariala.

After several long moments of silence, he turns, and blinks to see an empty clearing. A lone cry from the valley below catches his attention. He walks to the top of the cracked staircase, and a cold fist wraps around his heart at what he sees. “No,” he breathes.

Ariala is collapsed between petrified Qunari, one hand clutching her bleeding stomach and her other hand gripping the grass. Her bow is across her back, but her arrows have scattered, fallen from her quiver in the impact. She pulls herself from a patch of soggy grass through sheer force of will, and curls in on herself, stretching out her Anchored palm as far from her as it will go. Something makes her look up—and then she sees him, descending the stairs.

The pain in her expression shutters, turns to a numb neutrality of a wary animal. “Fen’Harel,” his love says. Her voice is quiet, rasping, yet seems to ring through the silence between them.

She may as well have run him through. On her lips, the insult is a mere statement of fact, akin to a remark upon the weather. There is no vitriol in her tone, but the fact that she had not greeted him as _Solas_ is telling.

Ariala tries to push herself up, and manages to latch onto one of the Qunari statues for support. “Fen’Harel,” she says again. When she tries to stand, she falls, and her bun unravels. The water around her is beginning to turn red.

 _No_. He itches to run to her, to heal her wounds and gather her close. Instead he clasps his hands behind his back and forces himself to approach her in even, measured steps—forces himself to descend the stairs one step at a time.

He keeps his gaze on the Anchor rather than her face, as it is the safer route, and clasps his hands behind his back. She does not try to move again, only summoning her energy to roll onto her back and press her bloodied hand against her stomach.

Solas counts her labored breaths, the fist wrapped around his heart tightening whenever her chest did not seem to rise, or when her breaths resulted in wet coughs. At last, at last, he reaches her—“Took you long enough,” she rasps, and the laugh leaves him before he can stop it. He bites it back at the last moment, clearing his throat.

“Can you stand?”

“Nope,” she replies, popping the _p_. “I’m glad that you think I can, though.”

“May I help you?” he asks, and she nods. Solas looks over her first—looks at her rent armor, her oddly twisted ankle, her bloodied lips and singed hair—and swallows thickly. Still, he avoids her gaze, as best he can.

He is not ready to see her look at him as she had looked at Rainier. He had thought the opposite, of course, but Ariala Lavellan had a way of unraveling the most solid of his expectations.

Solas inhales, slowly, and moves a gauntleted hand under her back. Water soaks his hand, but he is unconcerned with the chill. He presses on her back, helping her sit up. When it is over she sags against him, and his hand is still between her shoulderblades. Water trickles from her hair into the cracks of his armor.

He swallows again, and calls upon his own, partially regained power. In the span of a heartbeat, her wounds close. Her breathing is less labored; her abdomen is no longer slashed open and bloody; she is able to move her ankle. He waits for her to recover, doing his best to ignore her pained, shallow breaths. When that is settled, he takes her left wrist—gently, gently—turning her hand over so he can examine the extent of the Anchor’s decay. Bright green glows under the entirety of her lower arm, to the extent that it seems her arm is made of the Anchor, and her skin is only a thin membrane keeping it at bay. Tendrils of its power gleam underneath her armor, and the longest strands are dangerously close to her heart.

As if aware of his scrutiny, the Anchor flares, green sparks popping in her palm and burning his cheek. She cries out, pressing her face against his shoulder and swallowing back her screams with a clenched jaw. The light flares under her skin, and Solas _sees_ it move, sees it creep closer to her heart.

He must remove it, and quickly.

“ _Solas_ ,” she gasps, her voice hitching. Her bloodied hand grips his fur stole, betraying her agony.

“Ir abelas, just a little longer, vhenan,” he assures her, as he makes his own tentative overtures toward the degraded magic within her mortal body. It reaches out to him, and he makes quick work of the knots binding the Anchor and Ariala together. He unravels what their bond had once been, and takes the Anchor and its power into himself. The light corrupting her left side flares, once, and then dies down to the deepest veins of emerald, trailing up her arm and past her elbow.

It is not gone, not yet; there are still vestiges of his magic within her, dangerously close to her heart and lungs. Its power will regenerate faster, but—

“That should give us more time,” he says, voice hoarser than he had anticipated. He helps her stand. After a long moment of leaning heavily on him, she manages to take a few steps on her own. Once she can stand, he clasps his hands behind his back and steps away, distancing himself. He cannot stop his small smile as he regards her. “I suspect you have questions.”

She is silent for a heartbeat, and in that heartbeat he allows himself to drink in old, familiar features which make his heart ache. The curve of her jaw, the darkness of her eyes, the arch of her brows. Her hair is matted with blood, fallen out of its bun and framing her blood-streaked face. He has closed her cuts, but the evidence of them lingers; his gaze focuses on a new scar, puckered and paler than the rest of her tawny skin. It is dangerously close to her eye, stretching along her temple and cutting through her eyebrow. For an instant, he allows himself to wonder if he could have prevented that scar, had he stayed with her.

 _No_. He cannot venture down such a dangerous path. Not now, and perhaps not ever.

He waits, and the silence continues. Ariala stares at him, as though she, too, is trying to memorize his features. But he knows that is not the case; his people had reported her _happy_ , spending time with her friends and laughing whenever someone mentioned him in front of her. She could not have missed him as he did her—she could not have—

“So, Fen’Harel,” she says. Her casual use of his title makes him look down, makes his hands flex behind his back.

“I was Solas first,” he says, gathering the courage to look at her. She stares at him, unreadable—it bothers him, how much he cannot tell. She had taken her lessons with Madame Vivienne to heart, it seems. “Fen’Harel came later, an insult used as a badge of pride. Not unlike ‘Inquisitor,’ I suppose.”

Ariala’s face softens, but then she shakes her head and crosses her arms. “I can’t believe you, Solas,” she mutters at last. “I can’t believe—I could have said ‘ _howl_ you doing, Solas’ _every day_ for _two years_ and you robbed me of that opportunity. How could you take that from me?”

Solas’s mouth snaps shut, his words dying on his tongue. He stares at her, mouth twisting into a frown, unable to believe what he had just heard. She knows that he is the hated figure of her people’s mythology and yet she is concerned about—

Her breath leaves her in shaky, pained exhales. And suddenly, it occurs to him.

She does not care about her jests.

This is how his heart has always been. She is not one for screaming, for alerting others to her pain. She has always been the type to grit her teeth and bear it, even at cost to herself. She would rather dance around her own problems than face them head-on. She would rather divert attention from herself; would prefer to distract others into talking about another topic.

And she had almost succeeded.

“Don’t do this, Ariala,” he says. _Inquisitor_ had felt so cold and heavy on his tongue. He had missed the sound of her name. He had gone two years without speaking it.

Two years. A blink of an eye, and an eternity.

Speaking her name is the final drop to shatter the dam. The neutrality cracks, and crumbles to dust, and the pain on her face is so visceral Solas feels the knife of it twisting in his own heart. “You’re _safe_ ,” Ariala whispers. “I was so afraid the Viddasala—I wanted to get here first.”

“I know,” Solas returns. She stumbles forward, reaching for him, and he takes a step back.

Her black-brown eyes gleam with unshed tears. “No, please. _Please_ don’t, Solas.”

“I cannot,” he rasps, and it is true. If she touches him—if he holds her in his arms again—his resolve will crumble. All would be lost. She had worn down his defenses before, and she could easily do so again. If she touches him, he will remember why he had wished to stay with her in the first place.

She takes another step forward and his hands come up of their own accord, warding her off. She stops dead, swallowing hard, and—he has seen such hurt before. When she was bathed in moonlight, barefaced and vulnerable, and his heart had ached because he had never seen as beautiful a soul as her.

Her hands curl toward her stomach, then press against her mouth. She turns away, a hitched breath escaping her, shoulders shaking in her near-silent grief. Solas swallows, and blinks away his own tears, burning against his eyes.

He had thought he was prepared, but—

He has such clumsy hands, even with the most delicate of things. _Especially_ with the most delicate of things.

The realization strikes the breath from him, and suddenly the short distance between them seems insurmountable. He lowers his hands, dropping his gaze as he clasps them behind his back. _Ir abelas, vhenan_.

He closes his eyes, and suddenly there are warm hands on his face. Solas starts, taking her wrists in hand, but cannot bring himself to pull away from her touch.

Her hands smell like blood, like elfroot potion. Solas inhales at their warmth, clenching his jaw, fighting the impulse to close their distance and pull her close. In the end, he does not have to war with himself; Ariala is the one who moves first. She makes a small noise, half-suppressing a sob, and releases his face to wrap her arms around him.

The embrace makes him open his eyes, makes him stare down in wonder at the woman before him. His heartbeat begins to race, unaccustomed to such touch after two years. After a long moment he closes his eyes and wraps his arms around her, burying his nose against her hair. Their armor makes it an uncomfortable embrace, yet he would not change it for anything.

He brings up a hand, and cups the back of her head. Two lonely years he had dreamed of her, while his smallest memories had slipped from his grasp like water through a sieve. _(What ditty had she hummed in the halls? How had her nose wrinkled when she woke? What else has he forgotten? When she is gone, a hundred years from now, a thousand, what will he remember?)_

He presses his nose to her temple and closes his eyes, trembling. Piece by piece, her warmth chips away the façade he had worked so hard to build. All she does is hold him, and he is ready to fall to his knees, confess everything and beg her forgiveness.

That is the danger of her.

At length, he pulls back. When she makes a sound of protest, tightening her arms around him, Solas grits his teeth and closes his eyes, looking away. “Vhenan,” he begs, his plea going unspoken. Ariala sucks in a breath and nods, her hair brushing against the underside of his jaw, and then she steps away.

Her face is once more expressionless, even as she flexes her hands. Yet when she blinks, twin tears streak down her face, shining against the dirt on her cheeks. “You never said goodbye,” she whispers. This time she does not look away, and the grief in her eyes makes a lump well in his throat.

“I wanted to,” he returns, quietly. “I wanted to, vhenan.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I feared that if I said goodbye, you could convince me to stay,” he says. “Because I awoke in a cold world, and your presence gave it warmth. Because I love you, but if I allowed myself to love you as you deserve, I would betray myself.”

More tears spill, and she takes a moment to collect herself, pressing her fingers hard against her eyes. He watches, itching to go to her but knowing he could not. After several long moments and a handful of deep breaths, she lowers her hand and looks at him, stoic once more. “Is this why you left? You were afraid of how I’d react to the fact that you are Fen’Harel? What—did you think I would put you in chains? Kill you?”

In a small voice that nearly breaks him, she asks, “Did you trust me that little?”

“No. I meant to tell you, in Crestwood. But I lost the courage then.” He pauses, looking her over once more, drinking in features no longer marred by Mythal’s vallaslin. She had been beautiful before; now, she is radiant, even bloodied and weakened and fighting back tears.

“But now… now you know.” He looks away, shaking his head. “What is the old Dalish curse? ‘May the Dread Wolf take you’?”

He knows the remark will hit home. Now, he is glad that he had maintained the self-restraint to spurn the more sexual of her advances, and that she had not pushed harder. Had he lain with her, before she had known the truth of his identity, of his intentions… he does not know if he ever would have forgiven such selfishness.

“Our legends about you are wrong,” she says, after a moment. Her face softens, and she looks hopeful. “I saw the truth as we traveled the Crossroads.”

Solas looks down. “You saw another story, written in desperation to give me more credit than I ever deserved.”

“If you had just told me…”

At that, he looks at her. “Then you would carry the same burden I do.”

She shakes her head, just slightly, black-brown eyes never straying from his. “I want to.” Her voice softens, and she reaches for him again. He closes his eyes, steeling himself against her touch. Her fingertips brush against his cheek, but it is her next words which nearly undo him. “Ma ghilana, vhenan.”

His breath shudders, and his hand reaches up to cradle the back of hers. Her palm presses against his cheek, warm and solid and real, and—he closes his fingers around her wrist, lowers it to her side. “There are things we must discuss, vhenan,” he says. She does not complain, but clasps his hand in hers as he guides her to the cliffside. He does not have the heart to pull away, not this time.

He tells her everything. The Evanuris, his role in the creation of the Veil, the subsequent destruction of the People. When it is over, Ariala stares at him, silent. She looks at their conjoined hands, bloodied and sheathed in metal, and then looks at him. Her gaze contains such gentleness, such _compassion_ , that Solas must look away. She squeezes his hand and he closes his eyes, clenching his jaw so tightly it aches.

“That was the past,” she says, quietly. “What about the future?”

He turns away, but she does not release his hand. It is a fact that both pains and warms him. “I lay in dark and dreaming sleep while countless wars and ages passed. I woke still weak a year before I joined you. My people fell for what I did to strike the Evanuris down, yet some hope remains for restoration.”

He comes to a stop before the eluvian, and carefully releases her hand. He folds his hands behind him, straightens his back, and focuses his gaze on the eluvian. “I will save the Elvhen people, even if it means that this world must die.”

It takes a few moments for her to understand. “What?” she asks. “ _What?_ Did I hear you right?”

“Ariala,” he begins.

“No. I refuse to believe that. Vhenan, whatever you want—this world _dying_ is not the answer.”

 _Vhenan_ , she calls him, still. If ever he has been so undeserving of a title, let it be that.

“Not a good answer, no. Yet sometimes terrible choices are all that remain.” He inhales, looks at her over his shoulder. “You must understand. I awoke in a world where the Veil had blocked most people’s connection to the Fade. It was like walking through a world of Tranquil.”

She recoils at that, eyes wide and horrified and _hurt_ most of all. “We aren’t even people to you?” she asks, quietly. He faces her fully, suddenly desperate to reassure her.

“Not at first. You were the one who showed me there was value in this world, my love. I do not take any joy in what I must do, but it is necessary.”

“No. No, it isn’t. You aren’t that kind of man, Solas,” she says, desperation tinging her voice. Out of the corner of his eye, she steps toward him, reaching for his cheek before she thinks better of it. “The man I love wouldn’t kill millions of people for a hope.” She tries to smile, and fails. “He’d call it impractical.”

That makes him look at her. He swallows, thickly, and shakes his head. “The man you knew at Skyhold was a façade, and it was cruel of me to—to—”

“He wasn’t,” she returns, fiercely. She cups the back of his head and presses their foreheads together, and he closes his eyes at the familiar gesture. It is all he can do not to sink into her embrace again, not to wrap his arms around her and try to remember the smell of her shampoo. Her breath fans hot across his face and her gaze searches his, seeking something he knows she will not find.

“I love _Solas_. Solas, the man who showed compassion to the refugees in the Hinterlands. The man who guided a spirit of Compassion when it was overwhelmed by the pains of this world. The man who moved a few steps aside to avoid trampling an early sprout in the Frostbacks. The man who engaged in passionate debates because he had causes he _believed_ in.” Her voice breaks. “The man who helped prove to a lonely hunter that the world was bigger than her clan, that her dead clan was not the only family she could have.”

His breath shudders from his lungs. Tears sting his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. Such grief will have a purpose, once he is away from her and set on his path. He reaches up and tucks his thumb under her palms, warm despite her fingerless leather gloves. He lowers her hands again, and shakes his head as he turns away, his back to her.

“Even so,” he says. “That is not—I cannot be that man, not ever again. I will have to—” he stops himself, exhaling heavily before gathering his courage. _I must rebuild this world from its foundation and you will hate me for it._ “I could not do that to you, vhenan.”

“But you would do it to yourself?” Her voice cracks, and she swallows. “No. I can’t—I can’t bear to think of you alone, not again.”

His breath hitches, and his eyes close. A cold fist wraps around his heart and squeezes. “I walk the dinan’shiral. There is only death on this journey. I would not have you see what I become.”

Ariala is silent for a few moments, pensive and thoughtful. “Then let me help you,” she says at last. Before he can reply, she continues. She moves in front of him, and grips his hand, placing her Anchored palm on his cheek. “Solas, please. We can—we can figure out a way to take down the Veil _without_ destroying the world. Together, like we have always done things. Come home with me and we can figure it out, I promise. Please.”

Solas stares down at her. There were other things he had wished to discuss, but it is clear she will not move from this topic. Likely she will do her best to prevent him from leaving, as well. And there is still the matter of the Anchor; even now, the emerald vestiges of the Anchor’s magic have brightened, returning to their former state. Her left arm is beginning to glow green once more.

The longer the silence stretches, the more hopeful her smile grows, the more her eyes soften. Such a tremulous hope, and he will have to crush it. _Forgive me, my love_ , he thinks, as he carefully reaches up and cups her face. “My heart,” he whispers.

Her smile is radiant. _She_ is radiant, beautiful in a way he has never seen before, her hope lighting up her eyes and her face. More tears spill down her cheeks, but he cannot help but feel that they are tears of relief, of joy, at his apparent change of heart.

“I love you,” she returns, and rolls onto the balls of her feet to kiss him. He stiffens in surprise, unused to such touch after two years. But in a heartbeat, his hands are on her waist and he is returning her kiss, hoping she cannot sense his guilt.

He is selfish; he will allow himself this.

The kiss is devastating in its gentleness.

She smiles against him, her hands cupping the back of his head. “I love you,” she whispers again, then presses her mouth to the corner of his lips. Solas turns into her touch, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth and worrying it between his teeth. She moans, mouth opening, and he deepens the kiss. She tastes like blood, but the give of her lips under his is a feeling he knows well, a feeling he has missed desperately during these two years.

When they part, she lets out a small, hiccupping laugh, her sun-warmed leather-bound hand holding his cheek. Her other hand lowers and grips his own, threading their fingers together. His forehead is pressed against hers and she is so full of joy and—he _loathes_ himself.

 _She will hate me_ , he thinks. _She will hate me and I will deserve it._

“Thank you,” Ariala says. Her hand squeezes his, and her smile breaks his heart. “We’ll get through this, Solas, I promise. _Var lath vir suledin_.”

_I wish it could, vhenan._

He cannot bring himself to smile, though he tries. He moves so his lips are pressed against her temple, and he closes his eyes, gripping her hands tighter. “I love you,” he says, and then whispers _sleep_ against the fragile point of her ear.

In the breath of silence which follows, she realizes. Her eyes find his and she pulls away.

“ _No—_ ” she gasps, her eyes going wide before her eyelids begin to flutter. Her knees buckle, but Solas catches her, wrapping an arm around her waist and carefully lowering her to the ground. He kneels beside her, his gauntleted hand still clinging hers.

“I am so sorry,” he whispers to her unconscious form. “I am so sorry, my love.”

He presses a kiss to her forehead and looks toward her Anchored hand, limp across her belly. While she is unconscious, he unwinds the knots intertwining herself and his magics, pulls loose the final threads that connects her to the power she could not have hoped to bear.

At last, it comes loose, leaving only nonlethal trace amounts of his magic within her. The veins the Anchor had infected turn black, and her skin begins to disintegrate. He stops any infection with well-placed spells, but he does not have time to fully dress her arm.

Their friends will have to see to that.

At least she will feel no pain from its loss.

Ariala’s expression is peaceful in sleep, though her right hand still grips his. He squeezes his eyes shut and lifts her palm, pressing a lingering kiss to the inside of her wrist. At last, he finds the strength to pull away. He rises to his feet.

Her hand slips from his grasp, and at its loss, something tears open inside of him. A choked, guttural sound he has never heard before escapes his lips; he grits his teeth, swallowing back the grief.

He arranges her so she is in plain view of her companions, once they get through the eluvian. She sighs in her sleep, head turning toward him, and he allows himself a moment of weakness—he brushes back a strand of hair and tucks it behind her ear.

“I will never forget you,” he confesses, and unlocks the eluvian keeping her _(their)_ friends away. They will keep her safe; she will be in good hands, with them. Better, more capable hands than his.

He leaves Ariala in a meadow, little forget-me-nots blooming in a crown around her head.

* * *

The eluvian seals shut behind him, leaving him halfway across the world. He is alone in the forest, he knows; that is why he falls to his knees and allows himself to shed the tears that had steadily blurred his vision the further he went from her.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, pressing a hand to his eyes. Even then, the tears burn as they fall, and do nothing to relieve the depths of his despair. “Vhenan. _Vhenan._ I’m so sorry.”

_Var lath vir suledin._

How could she say that? How could she know his past and his intentions, but still look him in the eye and say that their love would endure? How could she have such faith in him? How could she—how could she—

_Var lath vir suledin._

How could she still love him?

Safe on the other side of the eluvian, half a world away from the woman who had changed everything—

Solas weeps.


End file.
